“Ah, Richard, mayn’t I have my thoughts to myself?”
“By all means, Clare. I hope, my dear, that no one has ever accused me of being a tyrant. Of course your thoughts are your own.—But you don’t resent, do you, the things I have been saying of Lovel?”
“I am only tired of the whole subject.”
“Yes,—of course,—naturally,—I quite understand that. Mrs. Quince is an old gossip. I must tell her that it really doesn’t interest you to be informed every time a woman in the village has a baby. It doesn’t does it?”
“No, of course not,—but don’t say anything to Mrs. Quince, I beg you.”
“But I can’t have my wife bothered by my old gossip of a housekeeper. I daresay she meant it well, thinking you were interested in Lovel.”
“Richard, please,—let us leave Lovel now,—I shall begin to scream if I hear his name mentioned again, I warn you.”
“Clare. You try to joke, but the idea of saying that wouldn’t come into your head if there were not some truth in it.”
“Well, I told you I was tired of the subject.”
“You are talking now like an irritable woman.”